A Cursed Affair
by Sapsorrow86
Summary: The story tells of the cursed man who falls in love with the kind, beautiful princess, but no one tells about the curse, and how it fell for the parts of the princess that were neither kind nor beautiful. Canon compliant.


The Dark One had inhabited many vessels over the years. Most of them fleeting- which in the case of Gorgon the Invincible had been an acute relief- but some of them surprisingly lasting. But none had ever compared to Rumplestiltskin. Back when it'd first encountered the wretch, half scared to death and reeking of desperation, he hadn't seemed like much. When it latched onto him, Zoso's warm blood still on the surface of the dagger, it'd shuddered at being encased in such weakness. It'd given the Spinner months, at most, even when he began to relish in his newfound magical prowess.

But the darkness had underestimated the little peasant. Beneath the pathetic exterior there was a surprisingly cunning mind, a delicious mean streak, and a tendency for survival it'd seldom seen before. And on top of it years and years of pain to feast on, to use as clay to mould the Spinner whichever way he pleased. His steadfast link to his son had bothered him at first, but after years the sentiments had bled onto it like toxic waste, corrupting it. And so, in turn, it'd used that reluctant affection for its own purposes, had let the open wound fester in Rumplestiltskin until it made him capable of unspeakable things.

With time the Dark One found that stability bred moderation. Previous Dark Ones had used the power liberally, almost recklessly, and it had burned through them, hollowed them out. It wasn't so with the peasant on the road. He'd clung to enough humanity not to gorge on blood and death the way the others had, and had even come close to confining him to a mortal shell. But the darkness knew about survival as much as the Spinner did and it had used the strength of the vessel's fear to cling to the dagger and to its hard-earned eternity, the promise of forever.

It'd thought that, over time, the whimper-y little vessel would forget his child, would add so many years to his existence that he'd start to regard the memory of his son like something distant that happened to someone else. But he didn't. Far from it. Baelfire became an obsession, a fixed thought in the spinner's head, what he dedicated every waking moment to. And though the Dark One hadn't approved at first it had quickly come to realize how easy to exploit that obsession was. There was love for the child there, certainly, but also anger at the world that had wronged him and led him to lose him in the first place. Resentment at the Blue Fairy, at his father, at himself... it was beautiful.

And so it had used all that to draw the Spinner in, push him to dark deeds. It never quite managed to wrestle control away from him, Rumplestiltskin almost always in possession of his full abilities, but the man's little brat became quite an efficient carrot to dangle in front of the coward to get him to indulge in his powers. There was little the vessel wouldn't do in pursuit of his goal of being reunited with his son and so the darkness took hold of such desire and slowly began to twist it around. The winged little nuisance, the Blue Fairy, had helped in ways he hadn't anticipated, planting the idea of a powerful curse in the spinner's mind.

Whatever weakness the love for the child had bred in him, it was worth its value as a tool against Rumplestiltskin's humanity. It was easy enough to make the coward see that it wouldn't do just to find the boy, he also needed to find a way to do so without losing his power. Otherwise even after being reunited with his son any myriad of things could separate them, either temporarily or forever. He conjured up a hundred different scenarios inside the Spinner's mind, each more gory and unpleasant than the last. And if the darkness found itself feeling genuine concern for the boy well, the better to fool the human with. And if it also felt a pang of loss at the thought of the boy, it just meant that it was feeding on the vessel's pain and it felt a bit like his own.

It was a long game the one being played, and so years and years passed. The darkness came to appreciate the comfort that a stable vessel brought, and began to develop its own quirks and customs, a more distinct personality than it ever had before. Every decade that passed gave the darkness more sentience, more consciousness, until the vessel began to think of the curse in terms of "him" and not "it". And so the Dark One began to think of itself as himself, and something deep shifted inside him.

Though the darkness had been able to shape Rumplestiltskin's desire into a straight, if not convoluted, plan of action, the Spinner had a tendency towards improvising and deviating from the path. Sometimes it was the result of boredom, or impatience, or the howling emptiness that grew inside the vessel more and more each year. Isolation was also a factor, he supposed, though the darkness couldn't quite tell why humans had the desperate need to be amongst each other.

So when a mood struck him Rumplestiltskin would peruse his mental list of options- the calls of desperate souls seeking his help- and select some promising lead. He became quite fond of collecting magical objects, telling himself it was so that he'd have them at hand if there was any future need of them in his quest to return to Baelfire. But the Dark One knew that was but half the truth. Like a dragon the Spinner like to heard... power. As much of it as possible, all carefully stacked inside his castle. It made Rumplestiltskin feel safe and smug, and the Dark One echoed that last sentiment whole-heartedly.

Other times, however, the Spinner's decisions made little sense. One time he bargained for a ragdoll, with tufts of coarse brown hair on the top of its lolling head. Later the Dark One found out Baelfire had wanted one just like it when he'd been around six and the vessel hadn't been able to afford it. Another time he dealt for a couple of sheep, merely because the quality of the wool was something he had often desired when he'd been a peasant. Silly deals, all of them, beneath the notice of the darkness, though it did add a touch of eccentricity to the Dark One's reputation. So he let them slide, thought them as meaningless little amusements for the Spinner that were otherwise of no consequence.

Until the girl, at least.

Ogres always plunged Rumplestiltskin in the strangest of moods. He became utterly unpredictable, even for the sentient being who shared a body with him, sometimes even deeply unstable. The Darkness liked a little imbalance, a little madness, but he disliked the lack of control those moments brought. Still, at first, when some unimportant little piece of land in the middle of nowhere sent an urgent request for help, he saw no problem in letting Rumplestiltskin had some fun with them.

By the time he named his price it was too late to stop it. The threat removed in exchange for the Lord's daughter. The Spinner seldom dealt in humans and when he did they tended to be younger and more portable, so his sudden interest in the very much adult daughter of Lord Maurice was perplexing. A peak into the vessel's mind gave him a jumble of disjointed thoughts and motivations, some of them exquisitely dark, others pathetically human. The transaction was over before the darkness could even question it and, moments later, the Dark Castle had a maid.

That first night she stayed there, while the sounds of her crying echoed across the stone walls, seeming to grow louder and louder, the darkness sought to unravel the true motivations behind Rumplestiltskin's actions. On the surface there was a base chord... greed. The woman had truly been the most treasured thing in the castle, beloved by the Lord her father above everything else. The darkness couldn't argue with the fact that she had been the steepest price to ask for.

Beneath that there was a layer or vindictive glee. The thought of ordering a noble about amused the vessel. Watching her struggle and suffer the way poor people did, the way he'd done, wrought the Spinner an amusing sense of satisfaction. The darkness revelled in this reason, for the idea of bringing someone so high so low was terribly amusing.

But beneath all that there was another reason, a truly pathetic one. Rumplestiltskin, knowing himself close to achieving all he'd worked for over hundreds of years, wished simply to... practice the fine art of human interaction. Over the decades he'd lost touch with most of his humanity and had fallen out of practice when it came to having an actual conversation with a human being that didn't involve outright manipulation. It was mandatory, for the Spinner, to re-learn how to be sociable again, albeit in the most basic of ways.

Though the Dark One thought it a useless little experiment Rumplestiltskin seemed determined to see it through. And once a couple of days had passed the darkness came to the conclusion that the girl was...

Boring.

A weepy mess, for starters, always looking on the brink of a crying fit. Her eyes seemed to be constantly puffy and red, like her nose. And moody to boot, prone to long spells of silence and a cloud of sadness that followed her around at all times. Weak little human, he could tell, who'd break too easily, would soon turn her sadness to anger at her lowered station and later regret. Her deal had made her feel like a heroine but he predicted her inflated ego would only comfort her for so long. In a few days, a month tops, she'd be desperately wishing to strike a new deal to take back her "noble sacrifice".

And then the incident with thief happened and the darkness had to amend his initial impression. The girl was not boring, she was insane. Utterly and completely. There was no other explanation for how she readily defied the Dark One to rescue some nameless robber she'd never met before. No one with all their marbles would even think about pulling some idiotic stunt like that, and all in the off-chance that the thief would be actually telling the truth about his noble intentions.

And then there was the hug. Who on Earth would even contemplate the idea of invading the Dark One's personal space, much less wrap their arms around the sorcerer and squeeze? She'd even bared a side of her neck to him, like he wasn't some wild predator and she a flighty little gazelle, whose jugular he could easily tear into and watch her bleed to death.

She had some sort of death wish, the darkness concluded. Rumplestiltskin had gone and dealt for a broken, defective human. He'd been well and truly had and he told him so, loudly and often. The Spinner refused to acknowledge his crass mistake, clearly out of embarrassment, and steadfastly tried to either ignore the girl's quirks or attempt to assert his power, make her see the foolish, dangerous nature of her behaviour. It wasn't quite rare amongst the noblesse, some degree of madness. It was the inbreeding, the problematic habit of marrying cousins that brought on children with little sense and webbed feet.

That line of reasoning lasted a bit more than his initial impression, but didn't hold up in the long run. Though not without her quirks the girl did seem sound of mind, with the exception of her rather impertinent attitude- though, he had to admit, the darkness didn't completely hate her sarcasm or her flippant insolence- and her strange tendency to seem to seek his touch rather than shy away from it. Ever since possessing the first vessel the Dark One had existed without much human contact. Aside from his rather fearsome exterior- scales and claws, after all, weren't very pleasing to the human eye- his reputation completely guaranteed isolation. Whenever a vessel had felt the need to scratch an itch they would change their appearance, adopt some disguise or the other. The darkness would retreat, coil himself tight and wait for it to be all over.

But the girl... The girl was relentless. The touches would begin at breakfast time and not let up until the clock struck ten and she'd retire for the night. Rumplestiltskin had given her a room of her own not long after showing her the library, reasoning- lying to himself- that his little maid would catch her death of cold in the dungeons and then he'd have no one to order about. But, aside from one strict rule he'd managed to impose- no leaving her room from midnight till dawn no matter what- the Spinner had absolutely no control when it came to the maid. She did as she pleased, scoffed whenever the vessel would try to order her about and carefully manipulated her "master" with the power of her pretty eyes and sweet words.

And those artless touches, and honeyed words and guileless smiles made the Spinner ever-so-nervous. He grew flustered and awkward whenever she invaded his personal space, which she did often, and retreated with humiliating alacrity. The Dark One's reputation was enough to make people recoil from the mere mention of his name and yet here he was, trying to seem nonchalant as he practically fled from the hired help.

It was then that the darkness decided the girl wasn't mad... she was a _genius_. A mastermind of some sort, managing to enter the Dark Castle as nothing better than an indentured servant and become, within a few weeks, mistress of the place in all but name. With the Dark One at the same time seeking and fleeing her touch and company, wrapped around her little finger for her to do as she pleased. Oh, she was smart, the maid. Never used her power overtly, or pushed it too far. She was crafty, that one, pretending she wasn't playing some long game, acting surprised when the Spinner began to discreetly lessen her workload until she was barely doing any work at all.

It soon became clear that the girl merited further study and so the Dark One begun to spy on her. As much as he could while Rumplestiltskin remained in control of their body. He studied her keenly, cataloguing her every move and expression. She had an easy face to read, but he'd come to discover it came paired-up with a rather keen mind that chose very carefully, at times, which emotion to show. He grew to grudgingly admire her for it. As a matter of fact the girl, Belle, had many qualities he appreciated. Sharpness of mind, for one, and the ability to choose her words carefully. She wasn't naturally prone to deception, but she was good at it when she practiced it.

She was curious too. And in that curiosity, in that insatiable need to have answers to her questions, the darkness found in her a match. She was, for sure, pure of heart, almost insultingly so. But because of that, because she was made mostly of light, her darkness stood out all the more. Watching her it was easy to see almost everything intrigued her, from the plants that grew on his grounds to the smallest knickknack forgotten in some dusty, unused room. But she seemed to linger more on obscure, menacing things. Poisonous plants of vibrant colours, dark objects that seemed forbidden. The more dangerous something was the more the girl seemed to be drawn to it, to want to know how it worked. She didn't seem to realize it, or at least the darkness didn't think she did. It was a natural inclination, instinctual and beautiful.

And the Dark One couldn't tear his eyes away from it.

The full extent of her insatiable curiosity was revealed to him when one night, alone with his thoughts, the Dark One heard a noise. Though Rumplestiltskin was firmly in charge of his body during the day the darkness took over at night, strengthened by the light of the moon. The Spinner had fought that arrangement at first, terrified of giving up control to the darkness inside him, but over time he'd grown to accept it as a small inconvenience. Usually the peasant would drift off to sleep, go still and quiet for some hours, and as long as the darkness didn't cause too much trouble it didn't see fit to fight to be back in control. It was an unorthodox arrangement, to be sure, but the Dark One had had to make concessions when it became clear that the vessel and he would be together for a long while.

Usually the darkness spent its nights drinking, creating curses or simply sitting by the fire, trying to decipher the number of years left till the spinner's heart gave up completely and he'd finally be free. It hadn't been something he'd ever contemplated happening before, but as years turned to decades and later centuries and the darkness felt itself change into a himself, become more aware and more flesh and bone than it had ever been before, it had become his most fervent wish, his quiet longing. The Dark Castle was, as a rule, deathly quiet during his nightly tenure so the slightest noise, like a door opening softly several corridors away, resonated across the emptiness with the force of thunder.

Like a predator would, the Dark One perked up at the sound instantaneously, his body tensing. Rumplestiltskin, the clever little bastard, had made sure to command him through the dagger to never set foot in the little maid's room. Clever of him, for sure. And he'd ordered her never to leave her room at dark, when the darkness prowled the castle like a hungry beast. But the innocent maiden, it seemed, was too curious to resist the call of that which was forbidden. And the darkness realized he'd been counting on it, had been waiting for that moment for a long time now.

He sought her out with his magic, turning himself invisible and transporting himself to where she was. Clever thing hadn't even lit a candle, sticking close to the walls and feeling her way around. There was enough moonlight for even her weak human eyes to see, which meant the Dark One had perfect visual. In the moonlight Belle was even more exquisite that under the harsher, coarser light of the sun. The simple white shift she wore- shapeless and too big for her- bared one of her shoulders, the thin fabric doing a rather poor job of concealing the rest of her from his heightened stare. It was altogether a rather startling combination of innocence and sin, sharpened by the fact that she was completely unaware of it.

He followed her silently for a while, seeing if she'd try to escape or otherwise plot against him. But aside from her dooming curiosity everything else about her, from her intentions to her actions, was purity itself. She was as she presented herself, artless and genuine as she appeared with him.

"Bad things happen to curious kittens, dearie."

The Dark One laughed, high-pitched and unsettling, and watched with delight as his little maid startled, spinning around to face his now-visible form. Her hair was in a thick, very loose braid, the end tied with a bit of his golden string, he noticed. Somehow the detail sent a shiver of pleasure down the Dark One's back.

"Don't do that!"

Any other person caught breaking a rule set by the Dark One in his very own castle would've immediately attempted to grovel after being caught by the monster himself. Belle, of course, chose to chastise him. Disrespectful little thing.

"You sure you want to discuss things that shouldn't be done, dearie?"

He wondered if she could sense the change, the slight shift in the timbre of his voice, the darkening of his irises or the subtle alteration in his posture that differentiated him from Rumplestiltskin. The child- nay, a woman fully grown- looked the slightest bit sheepish at being caught out of her room at night but that insatiable curiosity of her overshadowed that.

"You never did give me a reason not to leave my room at night. The castle looks the same, no dangers lurking in the shadows."

There was an almost undetectable trace of regret in her tone, as if she was disappointed by the truth in her words. He saw a hunger in her eyes, deeper now than it was in the light of the day, and it thrilled him. Eyes like those might just see through the Spinner and into him.

"Are you so sure about that, dearie?"

A hand reached out, clawed fingers curling around the tail of her braid, which happened to be resting over her naked shoulder, and caressing idly. Far from reacting with fear and taking a step back like she was supposed to she tilted her head, her gaze unwavering. At first he thought it was her foolish, embarrassing belief that he wouldn't hurt her. And she was right, of course. Rumplestiltskin seemed incapable of doing harm to his little maid and she had grown complacent once she'd discovered this. But something about the tilt of her head or the wideness of her pupils, the way her lips parted ever-so-slightly, cued him to a different answer. It wasn't safety that kept her where she was but intrigue, that thirsty little part of her that seemed to realize that whoever was in front of her wasn't Rumplestiltskin but rather something else.

Something more.

"You look different in the moonlight."

The wistful undertone of her voice made his pulse quicken, an altogether human reaction he'd caught, like a disease, from the vessel.

 _'She sees me.'_

"Everything does, dearie. The night is for those things that people don't admit to in the light of the day. Hidden traits and desires, secret urges and impulses. Little girls like you could get very hurt."

He let a claw sink into the braid, past the hair and graze the top layer of skin, breaking it easily. But his little maid barely seemed to register the pain, still looking at him intently, in a way that would strike the Spinner as deeply unsettling. The darkness, however, couldn't get enough of it, wanted to have such fierce, undivided curiosity directed at him always. But it knew that he'd need to feed the flame to keep it alive.

"Now, now, dearie, you go straight back to bed. I will have none of your curious night-time explorations."

To allude to tantalizing mysteries and then stressing the forbidden nature of such exploration was just the way to ensure the little maid would leave the safety of her rooms at night. Sometimes he simply followed her around, either invisible and by her side, or with his heightened senses from the safety of the dining room. Night-time Belle had a much more interesting taste in books that daylight Belle did, he soon found out. Tomes about dark magic, deadly places and carnal acts no maiden should even be remotely aware of. The darkness began a game of guessing which book would catch her fancy each night, and sometimes would pick a book after she'd finished with it and read the same passages, wondering what she had thought about the information inside. It became a secret delight, to know a side of his little maid the Spinner wasn't privy to, didn't know. It was his and his alone, and the darkness delighted in every tiny glimpse of it.

Hiding it from the Spinner in his waking moments became a problem, however. It became instinctual to be closer to Belle, to lean closer whenever she invaded their personal space and linger when she touched them. But Rumplestiltskin wanted the opposite, to flee and hide and cower from it, and he was beginning to notice how the darkness fought him on that.

 _'Can't have the Dark One fleeing from the hired help, can we?'_

The Dark One was astute enough to know he needed to temper his hunger, to keep the Vessel from finding out about his growing obsession with the human girl he was mooning about. But it had been decades since something had caught his attention so thoroughly and the vessel's contagious humanity made things unnecessarily complicated and messy. Before the Spinner the darkness had possessed astonishing clarity of thought. It had sought only to possess those desperate enough to be manipulated into seeking power, freedom from the dagger and the end of light, its bitter enemy. But after so many decades with Rumplestiltskin, with his human thoughts and emotions slowly seeping in, corrupting him, everything had become less clear, less orderly. And though the darkness liked the consciousness, the heightened awareness and corporeality, he resented the messiness of it.

Sometimes the Dark One thought that what he wanted was the little maid's blood all over his hands, bright red and still warm. It was a hunger he understood and had felt often in the past. Other times he thought he might want to consume her, to somehow cut the darkness from whatever place it hid in her heart and eat it, take that curiosity and gobble it up. At the same time, however, he wished to pour into Belle, coat her from the inside out until there was no way to distinguish where the darkness ended and the maiden began. Those contradictory impulses, to eat her up and sink into her, were completely foreign to the Dark One, even a little intimidating in their newness, but the Spinner seemed to know exactly what they meant.

Know and dread it.

Uncertainty soon turned to fear inside Rumplestiltskin, who began to question the darkness with the dread of someone who knows their suspicions were correct. The darkness spoke to Rumplestiltskin of his desire to toy and frighten the human, to amuse himself with the mouse the Spinner had insisted to let loose upon the castle. He spun pretty lies, lies to placate the vessel, to justify the eagerness that stole over him at night when the door of the maid's room creaked open and he felt his human heart pick up its pace in response.

Some nights he could force himself to only seek her out with his magic, to spy on her from a safe distance. But other times, more frequent ones as the seasons turned, the Dark One found himself yielding to the confusing, suffocating need to be near her. Usually she'd lure her into the spinning room with a sound or a wisp of magic to light her way. When he'd noticed her tendency to wear a shawl if the night was cold he'd started keeping a roaring fire lit for her, so she would shed all but her nightgown. At the beginning he had delighted in trying to unsettle her but with time their nightly interactions began to change, to become more. Soon the Dark One found himself sharing some of his hard-earned knowledge about forbidden lore and magic and the decadence of men, of which he'd learned plenty over the years. He told her tales of hopeless wars and cruel kings, of despotism, pettiness and jealousy and people too mad with power to be considered human anymore. He shared his insights into the nature of men and though she always had some clever rebuttal or objection she never asked to change the subject or in any other way shied away from the knowledge he offered her, ripe like a fruit. Sometimes, if the conversation was particularly gripping, time would fly and the maiden would lay down on the table where she usually liked to perch, tired but too riveted to go back to the comfort of her bed. And as the darkness saw her laid out there, an offering in an altar, new and tantalizing urges would sprout inside him, like vines slowly climbing upwards, seeking to choke him. To taint her became an obsession. The darkness wanted to sully her, wanted to mark her, to own her. To leave her no place to go to, no person to turn to, to go deep into her and nudge the seed of darkness there, coax it into full bloom.

It was why the Dark One almost blew the castle up when the Spinner let her go.

'We had a deal! She's ours of her own volition, bound by magic and will!' The Dark One's ire was strong enough to gain him a second of body control, which he used to throw a fireball at a collection of newly-finished potions in the laboratory.

 _'When her people see her return they'll start rumours about the Dark One going weak. Going soft. Seeming human.'_ The word was spat out like the vilest of insults. _'You made the deal, you gave her to me, now give her back. I want her back. She's mine!'_

But the more the darkness claimed possession the firmer the Spinner stood. There was little of the spineless peasant in him at that moment, little of the cowardice that had made him such an easy target all those decades ago, so pliable. He stood obstinately by his decision to let her go, and the more the darkness raged against it the more sure the Vessel seemed to be of his decision.

It was a surprise to both that she came back. Rumplestiltskin spent an embarrassing amount of time watching her make her way past the gates and into the castle, and later shamed himself further by running down the stairs like a puppy eager to welcome its mistress home. And though the peasant kept thinking 'She came back for me, she came back for me' in the most cloyingly happy tone the darkness knew better. Belle hadn't come back for him. She'd come back for them.

This time, when the maiden invaded Rumplestiltskin's personal space, the darkness forced him not to retreat. When she leaned into him, hand on his thigh, her look open and vulnerable, both the Vessel and the Dark One returned the gesture. It had seldom happened in the course of the last centuries that both host and parasite synched up in intent and action but it happened at that precise moment. There was a slight pause, the calm before the storm, and it was Belle that took the leap and pressed her lips against his. It was the most innocent of gestures, unpractised and painfully chaste, but it burned all the same. The darkness paused for a second, the sensation echoing a long-forgotten memory before he was pulling back in a blind panic. This too was hastily supported by Rumplestiltskin once he understood that power was leeching off him.

What followed wasn't the Spinner's proudest moment. Thoughts of Baelfire and of being weak again, cowardly and easily pushed over, clouded his ability to reason and for once the darkness did not feel the need to whisper in the peasant's ear to manipulate the situation. Betrayal tasted bitter for both of them but though the Vessel's accusations were unfounded- the idea of Belle working for Regina was nothing short of ludicrous- the Dark One had a valid reason to recoil and harden.

"Kiss me again, it's working."

True Love's kiss, and the girl had known it. And she had known what it would do, what it would banish. Months they had spent meeting at night, sharing something not meant for anyone but them. And when Belle had looked at him during those moments she hadn't seen the Spinner, the spineless vessel she'd come to save with her kiss. She'd seen him, the Dark One, had smiled at him, flirted with him, conversed with him for hours on end. She had shared secret passions and interests, things she had kept just to herself for years, afraid of what others would think. With him she'd been able to be herself, truly, in ways not even the Spinner would fully understand or embrace.

And she'd chosen to come back and vanquish him.

He didn't confront her directly once night settled in. For the longest time he contented himself with watching her huddle in a corner of the dungeon the peasant had forcefully thrown her into. Even in the dank setting the girl was painfully beautiful, particularly with her cheeks crossed by tear tracks. Such a slip of a thing, breakable as fine china, and yet her alone had the power to destroy him. She was his greatest enemy, and her attack couldn't go unpunished.

The seed of a delicious little idea began to form in his head. A fitting way, indeed, to punish the girl for her blindness and treachery, to conquer his greatest enemy. With careful preparation he called forth all aspects of the Vessel's personality and current state of mind, easily affecting the appropriate mannerisms. He'd pose as the pathetic little Spinner, tell a tall tale of forgiveness and repentance and seduce the girl into bed, sullying her damnable little light completely. After that, while he still retained control of Rumplestiltskin's body, he'd cast her out into the night, making it clear he'd taken from her all that he wanted and didn't want her anymore.

When he entered the dungeon she didn't stand up, but her eyes followed his every movement and her posture was tense, as if waiting for something. He affected a contrite air, his eyes not meeting hers and his head slightly bowed. For good measure he started fidgeting nervously with his hands, the way the Spinner was prone to do. He waited a good while to speak and when he did he was careful to insert a note of apology in his tone.

"I seem to have gotten... carried away as it were, dearie. I don't do well with surprises, especially the one you pulled."

He eluded her gaze when she tried to catch his eyes, acting the part of the remorseful Spinner, awkward and shy and ever-so-sorry, yet unable to fully admit it. It was a song and dance he'd seen Rumplestiltskin do often. His little maid would soon take pity on him, bless her bleeding heart, and would seek to give him comfort, to ease his agitation. Compassion was already seeping into her eyes, as well as something else close to pity but not quite like it.

"I'm sorry."

He hadn't expected to cave in so quickly, but he made a good effort of hiding it. The sooner this part of the charade was over the sooner he could get to the defiling and the tarnishing. But it wouldn't do to rush his side if he wanted to be convincing.

"You mean, for almost leaving me powerless and at the mercy of my enemies."

He injected not-so-pretended anger into his words, though not too much. His little maid, however, shook her head, looking increasingly distressed and conflicted. He waited her out, knowing she needed to make the next move.

"I... I just wanted to make him happy."

The confession took him aback. For an instant the thought that the Spinner might be right and she'd indeed been working with someone crossed his mind.

"Curses are meant to be broken after all, aren't they? Surely you must have contemplated this happening eventually."

Comprehension dawned a few seconds later, equal parts giddy and bitter. The way she looked at him, with reluctant fascination, with that glint of curiosity attempting to hide beneath her lashes... that wasn't the doe-eyed look she reserved for the Spinner. That was how she had often looked at him in the dead of night, a gaze he'd fancied once upon a time was solely for him to covet, to enjoy.

She _did_ see him.

And she'd come back to kill him.

"Ah, so you did come back to be a hero and kill the beast, the monster, only to find out his victim didn't want to be rescued. Such a pity. After all we've shared, all the confidences whispered in the dead of night, the shameful flirtations and little indiscretions... Has it all meant nothing?"

Slowly, like a predator who knew not to startle the prey with sudden movements, he backed her up against a wall. He made no move to grab her, letting his presence and the innate air of power he carried root her to the spot. She was afraid, he could tell, like she had seldom been before in his presence. But there was also another powerful emotion rolling off of her and he bent down slightly to smell her, trying to discern what it was.

"It... It was wrong. You're wrong. You have no heart, no conscience. Like a sickness, clinging to Rumplestiltskin, leeching the life out of him. I wanted to rescue him."

She was lying. She trembled, but it wasn't only out of fear, and parroted the words because she knew that's what she was supposed to say. What she was supposed to believe. Good versus evil, just versus unfair, heroes and villains on opposite sides and only one path to a happy ending. But there was enough darkness in her to know it was all a falsehood, make-believe to simplify the complicated ugliness of the world.

"Do it then, sweet." The Dark One cupped her jaw gently but firmly and directed her lips as close to his as possible without actually touching. "Be the hero." The imp allowed himself a small flick of his tongue against her Cupid's bow, a provocation. "Kill the beast."

When she made no move to bridge the distance he moved forward, smirking in triumph when the maid's hands came up to grasp his shoulders and forcefully stop him. Her nails dug into his flesh, her whole body practically singing with her inner conflict. When he tried again her resolve broke completely. She turned her head to a side, pressing her lips tightly as if to make sure no kiss could possibly happen. It was all the incentive the imp needed, all the assurance it required. Giddy with triumph he dared kiss the corner of her mouth, sliding his lips along her jaw and slowly down her neck, his sensitive ears catching her low, breathy sigh. He made a low, reassuring sound on the back of his throat, a clawed hand softly sliding around her waist as the other pulled her hair aside to allow his mouth to continue to map her right clavicle and shoulder. Her nails dug rhythmically into his own skin, indecision still gripping her, but soon enough she was sliding one of her hands into his hair, using the other to pull him closer as he carefully sunk his teeth on the juncture between her neck and shoulder, her sweat tasting like triumph.

"Not such a hero now, are you, precious? All it takes is a kiss, after all. Don't you want to be a good girl? Do the right thing?"

Empty taunts when he was sure she wouldn't do it, but he enjoyed the way they made her tremble all the more and blush with shame.

"You're needlessly cruel."

Her voice came out surprisingly clear and strong even as her body all but sagged against hers, the fight going out of her completely. He smiled widely against the tops of her covered breasts, which he was enjoying nuzzling as her sharp nails scratched the back of his neck with enough force to break the skin if he'd been but a man.

"As are you, precious. So well matched, you and I."

Claws made easy work of the front lacings of her dress, and then eagerly directed their attention to the simple skirt, rucking it up to slip below and into the heaven of her thighs. With little patience he slid a hand upwards to cup her sex through her undergarments, letting a pleased little giggle when he found her wet already.

"You must be so tired. Being good, being brave. Teaching yourself not to seek out what intrigues you, not to go down the wrong path, not to want the wrong thing. Ignoring those itches beneath the skin, the ones you know you're not supposed to scratch. Well, sweet... I'll scratch yours if you scratch mine. What do you say, mmh?" The Dark One straightened enough to catch her gaze with his again, noticing her fully-blown pupils, nary a trace of blue to be seen. She looked... starved. "My, my, what big eyes you have."

She half-sighed, half-moaned, the sound much less inhibited than any before. With sure movements she brought her hands to his waistcoat, nimble fingers undoing the buttons with ease. There was a sort of challenge in her eyes, something defiant and delicious that thrilled him. Divesting each other of clothing became a game of dare, of proving something to the other. The imp was no stranger to nudity or even sex. Vessels had engaged in the activity before, some often and other less so. But he'd never been in control of the body before, had never been anything more than a glorified spectator. Hysterically the darkness realized that he was as much a virgin as the girl in his arms.

Only one way to remedy that, then.

A few wisps of magic had him out of his confining leathers, and another called the soft pelts of his bed to the dungeon floor. Taking advantage that Belle was still half-entangled in her undergarments he tackled her to the floor, pleasantly surprised when she simply kicked herself free and proceeded to wrestle him down too. Though it certainly wasn't the way the imp had seen humans copulate it felt natural to roll around the floor and fight for dominance. In spite of his claws and his fangs he didn't seem to have much of an advantage. Belle was wily and clever and after some hesitation she started to returns his bites and scratches with some of her own.

Naturally, almost without them noticing, a rhythm began to grow between them. The moment he pinned her down, hands holding her wrists above her head and pressing against the furs, the Dark One knew what would happen, what had been waiting to happen since the first time she'd ventured out of her room at night. She hesitated again then, eyes briefly clouding over with worry.

"Does... does he want this?"

Her voice was rough from their spirited foreplay and the delicious keens and moans he'd managed to coax out of her, but her words were clear enough to elicit a snarl out of the monster above her.

"Leave him out of this."

His growl and show of teeth didn't seem to impress her.

"It's his body. I can't... not if he doesn't want it."

He snorted then, patience wearing thin.

"I can't recall a second you've been in this castle that Rumplestiltskin hasn't wanted this, even before he was aware of it. Now leave him out of this and _be with me_."

His first thrust spoke more of anger than desire, but though Belle whimpered in pain she wrapped her legs around his waist and urged him closer instead of trying to scramble away from him. After basking in the utter delight of being buried balls-deep inside such purity the imp forced himself to pull out, eagerly thrusting back inside a moment later. It was a deliciously messy process, full of blood and sweat, grunts of exertion and impatience and the occasional struggle for dominance. The darkness had sprung into existence, had never felt the burning pain of being born and would never know the agony of death but thrusting in and out of Belle's hot little cunt felt a bit like how he'd always imagined those things feeling like. It became impossible to differentiate pain from pleasure, and by the looks of the woman beneath her he wasn't alone in such lovely confusion.

Though usually a selfish creature by nature the imp was beyond pleased when he felt the flutter of Belle's inner muscles against his aching cock and watched avidly as she arched beneath him, tight as a bowstring. His own orgasm a few minutes later felt less important than the one he'd torn out of the woman beneath him. A woman who'd willingly and knowingly bedded a monster instead of saving a man. With a gleeful sense of triumph the Dark One started to kiss his way down the beauty's body, eager to see in how many ways and how many more times a mortal woman could be tarnished in a night.

* * *

Rumplestiltskin wasn't used to waking up in an unfamiliar place. In spite of surrendering control of his physical self to the parasite inside him every night the Dark One was scrupulous in making sure he ended up in his bedroom when dawn arrived, or in the spinning room. He'd certainly never regained consciousness in a musty, stale room with little light. It took a few seconds for his enhanced senses to detect more details. First it was the rather pleasant bed of hay that separated him from the stone floor, then the very faint sound of water dripping somewhere near and the pleasant warmth of a body snug against his front. It was he last that caused him to become fully conscious and suddenly hyper-aware of his nakedness. In a state of near-panic he scrambled to his feet, careful not wake the other occupant of the room. It took him half a second to place the dark red-brown hair, the small, beautifully-rounded shoulders and the narrow waist. Belle. In the dungeon, where he had left her but naked and...

The bruises were obscene against her pale skin. Some red and angry, looking too close to bleeding, and others turning purple already. The scratches were long though not deep, going around her waist and down her hips in a grotesque allusion to a lover's caress, drawing his eyes to her-

"Quite the sight, isn't she?"

Rumplestiltskin's gaze snapped to the left, noticing for the first time the fully-clothed figure of the Dark One. The first time he'd presented himself he'd donned the face of Zoso but over the last century or so it had adopted his own face as the preferred one. The imp smirked at him, triumph shining in his eyes before he diverted his attention to the sleeping beauty. He knelt before her and idly began to trace the pattern the injuries made across her back and arms, displaying a sort of reverent care he'd never shown before.

"Get away from her. Don't touch her!"

One of the Dark One's hands sunk into Belle's hair, combing the tangled curls while the other one made shushing gesture against his lips.

"Hush, you'll wake her up. Poor dear needs her sleep. I have quite tuckered her out, you see."

The unabashed glee in the imp's voice was almost enough to make Rumplestiltskin sick. He bared his teeth, ready to violently shove the apparition away from Belle when it smirked, as if sensing his intent and the dark turn of his thoughts.

"For every delicious little scratch you see in her skin you have one as well, dearie. She was... vicious. Wanton. Insatiable. Completely free. Don't you remember, Spinner?"

The taunt didn't call to mind anything at first. A few seconds later, however, memories began to trickle into his head, hazy recollections of sight, scent and sound. Gasping sounds, the feel of flesh against flesh, the delirious beating of his heart and the maddening warmth and softness of Belle's sex gripping his own. The echo of her nails tearing into his back made him reach out to touch the scratches he hadn't noticed there before, stinging. Similar bumps and bruises seemed to litter his arms, strangely bronze against the green-gold of his skin. For a moment the idea that those might be defensive wounds inflicted by a terrified Belle threatened to make him heave.

"Ah, ah, what a gloomy little mind you have. I can assure you it was all very consensual. You must remember that, you weren't quite as ignorant of the proceedings as you seem to wish to believe."

This time more memories came and with them the certainty that he'd been awake and aware last night, had had the opportunity to intervene if he so wished… and hadn't.

"She was... magnificent. You don't give her enough credit if you think she was taken advantage of. Quite the contrary. She led the way the entire time."

"You... you did something to her. Tainted her in some fashion-"

The imp snorted, possessively holding onto Belle's shoulders, as if it were a dragon hoarding its treasure.

"You've seen it in her too, I know you have. Such pretty darkness in her, all her own. Eager to find its match, its mate..."

The imp sounded almost loving at that moment, even if centuries of cohabitation had taught Rumplestiltskin that it wasn't possible. The Dark One did not feel anything beyond anger and greed, understood nothing except violence and power. It did not grieve or love, certainly. It obsessed, deeply, but never quite with the intensity he was displaying now. Whatever he felt for Belle, close enough to affection to be confused for it, was dangerous.

It took an almost unconscious thought to have the dagger in his hands and a quick swipe dissolved the Dark One's hallucination temporarily. With hesitant, trembling hands he tentatively healed and closed each and every single one of Belle's injuries, fighting with a mixture of shame and longing as he forced himself to touch her. A flick of his hands had her fully clothed a second later, no evidence of the night's activities in sight. His next step led him to his tower, were his vast collection of potions was kept. Memory-erasing draughts were easy enough to store without spoiling, and he'd never before been gladder of that fact. He quickly measured a small dosage and carefully poured it into a pot of steaming tea, which he magicked away to the dungeon easily. The tea would keep its temperature till his maid decided to drink it and the low quantity of the potion would only cause her to forget the past twelve or so hours. Enough for her to remember their kiss and spat, but not enough for her to recall their... tryst in the dungeon.

The notion that Belle had likely not been in cahoots with Regina was a poor consolation now. He had to send her away, and the accusation provided enough of an explanation for it. He would be sure to hurt her, to kill whatever affection for him remained in her to guarantee she wouldn't come back. And when she was gone, he'd use the dagger to force himself to forget too, to remember only the urge to keep her away and not fully the reason why. It was the only way the darkness would forget too, and the best chance he could give Belle of a happy future. Away from him, with her family, where the Dark Castle would soon turn into an unpleasant but hazy memory, like a bad dream hard to recall in the light of the day.


End file.
